Being Ready

Origin Energy sent out a notification last week advising of a planned blackout from 6 am to 9 am for the following Friday. As usual being well organised it was noted in the kitchen planning calendar. And we promptly allowed the matter to lapse in our memories. If we'd been smart we would have risen at 5 am to make teas and coffees and not been affected. But no we forgot.

I looked at the clock beside the bed and thought "Just on 6, may as well get up and into it". Stumbled to the kitchen and flicked on the light to find there was none. "Jean, there's no power". "that's right John. There's a planned outage this morning. Not to worry we can use the gas stove to boil water and you can have plunger coffee".

I'm thinking "Three hours of outage, 15 minutes to setup extension cords to the generator" And that was that. Espresso coffee is so much nicer that it is worth the effort.

And the bonus is that an extension cord can be run into the office to power the computer and broadband connection over coffee.

The plan works. Generator set up in the workshop with ventilation and several extension cords hanging nearby. 15 minutes to run a cable over to the pressure pump and another over to the house. No need to bucket flush the toilet, morning wash of the face with cold water to wake up, coffee machine running, computer online. The day starts almost as normal.